The invention relates to a server suitable for being cut in between two machines or n pairs of machines, and capable of analyzing and processing information interchanged between the machines, so as to offer new services to the machines, without modifying said machines.
A first problem targeted by the invention is to provide new services in an existing telecommunications network without modifying the structure of the network.
A second problem targeted by the invention is the use of GSM terminals in a DECT private network. Such a network includes a private exchange, DECT mobile radiotelephone terminals, and optionally fixed telephone terminals. The network includes DECT base stations coupled to the private exchange by means of an interface specific to the DECT base stations.
Such a network is used in a firm. It gives employees a degree of mobility within the premises of a site of the firm. However, a firm often has more than one site. Certain employees thus move through several sites and outside the firm. In order to be reached almost everywhere, each employee carries a GSM radiotelephone terminal enjoying a subscription for the purpose of using a public GSM network. Employees are thus expected to use at least two different types of terminal depending on whether or not they are within a site of the firm.
Requiring the same employee to have more than one terminal is impractical, in particular because that employee then has more than one telephone number. In addition, employees are tempted to use their GSM terminals only, even though the cost of the calls is higher than that of calls via the DECT private network, and even though the public GSM network does not provide all of the services that can be obtained from the private exchange of a firm. Furthermore, users from outside a firm are tempted to call employees of the firm via their GSM terminals and not via their cord or cordless (DECT) terminals, in order to maximize the chances of reaching them. It is therefore desirable for the employees of a firm to be able to use their GSM terminals via the private network of the firm.
The authentication and enciphering procedures for a GSM call involve cryptographic algorithms and secret keys. Such keys cannot be made available to private networks otherwise the security of the calls would be jeopardized. Nor would it be acceptable for GSM calls through a private network not to enjoy the security provided by those authentication and enciphering procedures.
Objects of the invention are: to make it possible for the employees of a firm to use their GSM terminals within a site or within a plurality of sites of the firm at low cost and with the same services as if they were using DECT terminals; to make it possible for duly authorized external visitors to use their GSM terminals as DECT terminals of the firm in order to access the fixed public network via the private exchange of the firm, or in order to be called via the fixed public network; and optionally to make it possible for unidentified external users to enjoy the use of the same GSM base station.
Another object is to make it possible for employees also to enjoy certain telephone services and mobility that their GSM subscriptions offer them, and that the DECT private network of the firm does not offer them.
The invention provides firstly a server for enabling n pair(s) of machines to communicate, where n is not less than 1; the machines in each pair being capable of communicating with each other;
said server including:
one pair of simulators for each pair of machines, a first machine and a second machine of any given pair being connected to respective ones of two simulators respectively simulating the behavior of the second machine and the behavior of the first machine;
means for interconnecting all of the simulators, each simulator being capable of communicating with each of the other simulators; and
for a given pair of machines, the simulator of the second machine includes means for making the first machine believe that certain resources of a third machine are situated in the second machine of the pair in question.
The server of the invention is transparent to the services offered to the first machine by the second machine of the same pair, but it makes it possible for the first machine also to enjoy new services offered by a third machine, with which it cannot usually communicate.